Assignment Week 2 (Due by Sunday at Midnight)
Are Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti and Williams Carlos Williams describing the same people when they speak of
1) “angel headed hipsters,” (Ginsberg Howl 9)
2) “one with burlap feet” (Ferlinghetti 73 “I saw one of them”)
and
3) he who “shared among the teeth and excrement of this life"” (Williams Carlos William Introduction to Howl 7).
Why or why not?
To answer the question you may have to consider whether: Social conditions are different when each of the men are writing or whether the differences are due to personal/class/generational/stylistic/geographical or other differences that might cause differences in perspective amongst these three men. Or maybe you'll take the position that there are more similarities than there are differences.
OR
Take a look around the streets of Santa Cruz. Where are the best minds of your generation today? Write a description of some of these minds using a parallel syntax similar to the one found in Howl.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
34 comments:
Ginsberg, Williams, and Ferlinghetti could be alluding to the same homeless people in different stages of life, and from different perspectives. Or they could be discussing more ‘the path to homelessness,’ as in points at which one can be saved from, entrenched in, and sacrificed to homelessness.
In his introduction to “Howl,” William Carlos Williams writes: “On the way [Allen Ginsberg] met a man named Carl Solomon with whom he shared among the teeth and excrement of this life something that cannot be described but in the words he has used to describe it.” (7) “Howl” illustrates a hellish, drug-fueled trip of self and societal discovery which is colored by love and admiration. That Ginsberg lived through it shows he must have had some real, dependable love in his life to save him from the depths of outer-society. If Carl Solomon was in the same boat with Ginsberg and if they managed to be observers, it’s good for them that they found each other, though they still howl for the unluckier others.
Ginsberg describes these others he bore witness to as “angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly / connection to the starry dynamo in the machin- / ery of night.” (9) He could be talking about Carl Solomon or the Buddhist Beat Saints of the sixties or both, if they are one in the same. Ginsberg opens the poem by referring to the best minds of his generation, which he saw “destroyed by madness.” (9) Did these people, over the course of time and over the course of the poem, through drugs, spiral into those beings Ginsberg says took drugs and flipped out normies on the subway? Possibly some of those who lost their minds in the sixties joined the twenty-five percent of homeless who are war veterans, and another twenty-five percent who are products of the foster and other out-of-home care systems.
Ferlinghetti has a more distanced and less contemporaneous perspective than Ginsberg on the homeless in San Francisco. He watches them with a familiar kind of faraway pity that enables us to walk around the tragically abundant homeless every time we visit the city. Professor Wilson mentioned in class that the “one with burlap feet” (73) is reminiscent of St. Francis, who mandated care for the poor. In Ferlinghetti’s poem “I Saw One of Them,” we see a priest ushering a homeless person away from St. Francis’s Church. It could very well be that the homeless people Ferlinghetti sees, whose view from the Golden Gate Bridge is sweeter than that from the steps of the St. Francis Church, are the same ones Ginsberg and Solomon howled for forty years ago. Had they been saved by love like Ginsberg, perhaps they wouldn’t be products of consumerism, and human garbage. Instead they are saints who we have sacrificed because they found the truth outside of societal life, and they were never able to make the sacrifices necessary to fit back in.
These lines possibly refer to roughly the same people, but it is likely that Ginsberg and Williams are closer while Ferlinghetti is referring to a different category of person.
The “angelheaded hipsters” in Ginsberg’s poem describe the entity that is the antecedent of his nearly sixty “who” clauses: “the best minds of [his] generation.” These minds are great, but they are tortured, starved, and abused. Ginsberg believes that they have suffered the biggest losses, disappointments, trials, and injustices. His many descriptions include a large range of individuals in the category of “angelheaded hipster.” They can be homeless people, poor people, students, drug addicts, and many more. What links them all is their position on the outskirts of society.
If we take into account this link that the “angelheaded hipsters” share, then Ferlinghetti’s man with “burlap feet” may also fit. He lives on the outskirts of society, likely on the streets, and has no money to afford shoes. The “burlap feet” are a reference to St. Francis of Assisi, which may also make this man one of Ginsberg’s greatest minds of a generation. If, however, we read this man in the context of Ferlinghetti’s poem instead of through the Ginsberg lens, the burlap-footed man is just another one of the homeless people who roam cities. Ferlinghetti’s poem de-romanticizes the city while simultaneously romanticizing the homeless image. It remains unclear if he means that this particular man is a great mind, but he is also not trash in the street. I don’t think he holds the man in the same esteem as Ginsberg.
The lines by Williams refer to a specific person: Carl Solomon. They cannot be taken as anything else. We can extend the line to apply to the social group Solomon inhabits, which gets us closer to the “angelheaded hipsters.” He is addressed specifically in the poem, and he shared the “teeth and excrement of this life” with Ginsberg, which would likely make him one of these “greatest minds” and “angelheaded hipsters.”
In conclusion, the people referred to in these lines could possibly be the same people if we follow a certain thought pattern, but it is likely that, based on the differences in authorial point of view, Ferlinghetti’s burlap-footed homeless man is in a different category than Ginsberg’s “angelheaded hipsters” or Williams’ description of Solomon.
[I'll sometimes leave reponses to posts as they come in just in order to deepen the first round of discussions--but everyone else please respond to one another in the appropriate comment space: ex for this WEEK 2: RESPONSES TO THIS WEEK'S COMMENTS ON ANGEL-HEADED HIPSTERS ]
Kate/Historicizing
Kate,
This section of your post is really great:
"Possibly some of those who lost their minds in the sixties joined the twenty-five percent of homeless who are war veterans, and another twenty-five percent who are products of the foster and other out-of-home care systems."
You're doing exactly what I was hoping that you'd do--which is think a little bit about how history and social/material conditions play into the text--both the writing of it and the reading of it.
You're also making a helpful connection between the past and the future--this is quite important because everything that we have now is quite directly and materially inherited from the results of struggles before us.
You've also astutely made a good note about the tone of the poems:
"Ferlinghetti has a more distanced and less contemporaneous perspective than Ginsberg on the homeless in San Francisco. He watches them with a familiar kind of faraway pity that enables us to walk around the tragically abundant homeless every time we visit the city."
I'm hoping that someone will also dig in to this question--look up the ages of each man for example and make this excellent statement about the generational effects more specific.
The more history that we can bring to bear on all of these disucssions the better (having the book of essays will help with this but for now some internet searches will be helpful to--if different people contribute different facts the discussion could become quite interesting.
Remember that Howl was written in 1955-6. about a decade before the Summer of Love...)
Are there any experts on the 1950's out there? It would be great to have a description of anything from that time--for example even a description of fashions or prices...if anyone has the Brooks/Peters book yet and wants to pull out a few interesting details to add to their interpretation of the poem that would be great)
Eireene
To me, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, and Williams are all referring to the same people. But at the same time, I think there are discrepancies in what exactly those people look like.
San Francisco isn't exactly a place that provides for all its homeless people, and in that regard it would be somewhat difficult to categorize which street urchins are in fact beat down, intelligent poets, and which are homeless individuals of another faction.
For this reason, I think Ferlinghetti, Williams, and Ginsberg were all very inappropriate in their description of the so-called "best minds of their generation". The whole beatitude thing was so esoteric that for many of the thousands of people that became fans of this sort of poetry, it would be hard to deign the difference between a haggard poet and a simple stereotype of a homeless person. And to be honest, how many beat poets were really homeless? In my opinion, especially from the way Ginsberg reads his poems aloud, it seems that the beats were really into this sort of self-deprecation that made people think they were of a higher order of enlightenment (as according to Buddhist philosophy of 'the more suffering the better').
On the flipside, there is the potential that this sort of descriptive prose, is actually a call to modesty or at least a reflection of it. St. Francis certainly walked at one time with burlap feet and embraced the poor. Also, Ginsberg's description of "angel-headed hipsters" is as potentially eerie as it is potentially religious. Perhaps, he is implying that these beat down poets who represent all of the qualities described in the Sermon on the Mount (blessed are the meek, etc.) are actually acting the way they do as to mimic St. Francis and his goodness.
However to me this is impossible. Ginsberg thought he was a prophetic poet not a humble priest content with reading his poetry to himself. I don't want to be so cynical as to deny any possibility that these poets actually respected and worshiped the poor, but based on their notoriety and relative wealth for poets, it is hard to honestly think they would still mean those words today.
"No ideas but in things" was the advice William Carlos Williams gave to Ginsberg during one of their many councils at Williams' home in New Jersey. Ginsberg, whose earlier poetry reflects his suicidal erotic romantic thoughts, took this advice to heart. I think of the change as Ginsberg grounding his poetry, bringing it down to earth, and inheriting all the dirt and excrement in the process. Ginsberg's life, or "how it was exhibited to him," was a beat and tragic thing.
Williams was no doubt a significant inspiration to Ginsberg. But he didn't, and of course couldn't, share in the pain and suffering that Ginsberg experienced. He refers to Ginsberg's odyssey as just that, a wild journey through hell, one unfit for ladies in gowns and probably gentleman too. In some respects, Ginsberg is transformed into a hero figure, a la Odysseus or Christ. Williams' introduction holds in it the idea that Howl is the unreal, the mythical, and so he warns readers to prepare themselves for the ride.
The point I want to make is that Howl was not as real for Williams as it was for Ginsberg. To Ginsberg, Howl was his life experience, his visions of his friends and of America. Ginsberg could not remove himself from Howl like a traveler returning home, like Williams and other readers could. Among other things this does reflect the socioeconomic position of the two poets, Ginsberg who at this time was a broke and unsuccessful poet wandering through Europe, and Wiliiams the established, aging poet that lived in Paterson with his wife.
And to be honest, I do not know how Ferlinghetti comes into all of this. For one thing, he had no intention of describing the same "angel headed hipsters" that Ginsberg wrote about and that Williams mentioned in his introduction. Moreover, Ferlinghetti wrote his poem in a different era, a world dramatically altered from what it was in the 1950s. But all this is beyond the point. How could Ferlinghetti, who himself called Williams dictum ("no ideas but in things") "dead," how could he be refering to the same thing as Ginsberg. Sure, he may have identified the same type of people that Ginsberg howled about, but not the same idea. Things embody different ideas to different people: it is about the poetics of space. Simply put, a homeless man could be romanticized as victim or demonized as vagrant or beatified as Saint (or, in Williams' case, mystified).
In conclusion, I think the answer to this weeks question is a matter of perspective. Because although all three poets are referring to the same type of person, each of them sees something differently. Is material reality all there is, or can imagination, say, of a poet, change the way we see the world?
The Valley is fast, speeding electrons over laptops and bigger better stronger until we hit the speed of light. Champions of the virtual, college graduates and twelve year old hackers run the world from garages and bedrooms and multi million dollar buildings that would float away from pure inspiration if they weren’t weighed down by economy and debt and CEOs.
The Santa Cruz City is safe, a haven over the hill protected by miles of redwooded deathtrap roads. We conserve our weird with shields of music and poetry and Halloween. Old hippies nurture gardens of herbs while attending dance church on Sundays, and when the darkness hits the junkies smoke downtown peddling wide-eyed, used jean looks.
The School is alone, isolated on top of the hill by a twenty thousand dollar tuition and an elitist complex. Freaks from the State flock here to join the other weirdos of our ranks, only to find it’s just like everywhere else with its grades and corruption and no dogs allowed signs. They sit in their rooms and smoke and marvel that the school is liberal enough for them to drop acid on the weekends and no one cares.
The ones who know the world sit on the corner with their dogs, traveling because no town wants them for long.
The ones who know the world take the tickets at the farris wheel, paying their way through community college so one day they can work at the pharmacy.
The ones who know the world are living in the woods, surrounded by thousands of trees instead of four white walls.
The ones who know the world are the ones who woke up, quit their job, and now sell dreamcatchers at the farmers market.
The ones who know the world changed their names so nobody knows who they are except them.
The ones who know the world don’t give a fuck anymore.
Although Ferlinghetti's "[ones] with burlap feet," Ginsberg's "angel headed hipsters," and William Carlos Williams' description of those who "shared among the teeth and excrement of this life" allude to the same group of people, these poet's different descriptions stem not only from stylistic differences, but also, and more importantly, personal values.
In Ferlinghetti's poem “I Saw One of Them,” his use of prepositions creates a distance between the speaker of the poem and those whom he is observing--those “with burlap feet.” And yet the distance is not alienating, but rather gives the space for romanticizing these people while relating them back to St. Francis and the mythemes and origins of the city of San Francisco itself. In this connection to St. Francis, those “with burlap feet” are ordinary people transformed into holy representations.
Similarly, Ginsberg's "angel headed hipsters" are exulted, and their howls, so to speak, are through no fault of their own, but rather are outcries against the inhumane conditions and separations of society. Throughout "Howl," Ginsberg illustrates the pains and injustices pitted against those, who Ferlinghetti describes as being those "with the burlap feet." This outcry against these injustices however is not, as William Carlos Williams describes “a howl of defeat” (intro to Howl 7). If to only look at his characterization of these people as “angel headed hipsters,” their lives and predicaments are placed on a holy level, exulted above those who do not develop from or overcome their suffering or experience the simple beauties and joys which these “hipsters.” Although at times descriptions of defeat are presented, such as the illustration of those “who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores,” these images are juxtaposed by images of people who surpass daily limitations and overcome society’s pressures--those “who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot/ for Eternity outside of Time” (Ginsberg 16). More than anything this poems seems to be a howl of outrage against the treatment of society against these holy beings, hopefully suggesting that we all have the potential to be “angel headed hipsters” if we were to just treat each other humanely and struggle for that humanity within society instead of the financial gains of the evil “Moloch”.
William Carlos Williams’ description of these beautiful, yet struggling people appears to be the most distancing between himself and those he describes. Early on in his introduction to Howl, Williams states that he is from a time before Ginsberg’s, but also that to him Ginsberg “was always on the point of ‘going away’...he disturbed me” (intro to Howl 7). The things which Williams aesthetically viewed as disturbing, Ginsberg found beautiful--herein lies the essential difference between their stylistic and personal aesthetics. Ginsberg values of the simple life and things which many people would view as disturbing or illicit make the desperate lives of those who “shared among the teeth and excrement of this life” beautiful.
I feel like they are writing about the same people, it reminds me of the riddle in Oedipus: what has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening. However these men are writing about the same group of people from three different perspectives. Ferlinghetti is writing from the pre-Beat generation, Ginsberg is a Beat writing for “Beats” from within the Beat generation towards its demise, and Williams is a doctor writing from the modernist generation. The people the three are talking about are the archetypal “Beats” –from the birth of the Beats (as Ginsberg describes “the best minds of my generation” [Ginsberg, Howl, 9]) to their end (“destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked” [Ginsberg, Howl, 9]). Ferlinghetti observes them and describes them sarcastically, “I saw one of them singing/ on the steps of City Hall/ in the so cool city of love” ( Ferlinghetti, SF Poems, 74). He looks down to them in that many “Beats” were replicas of the real Beats (Kerouac, Diane DiPrima, etc…)—“Beats” are fakes with false ideals, they just wanted to be cool and trendy. Also Ferlinghetti strongly emphasizes that he is not a Beat, so that too goes into account of his disdain for the “Beats.” I feel like Ginsberg is a Beat not a “Beat” even though he is the poster-child for the Beat Generation. Ginsberg is legitimizing the “Beats” in that he describes their realities, “angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly/ connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-/ ery of the night.” (Ginsberg, 9). These “Beats” (aka “hipsters”), in Ginsberg’s description, are looking for this spiritual or soulful connection to art, culture, people—looking for meaning. Ginsberg does not look down to these “Beats,” but supports them in their search. Williams is talking of Ginsberg as not just a Beat, but as a human—an artist—being dissatisfied with the world around him. I perceive the quote “[he who] shared among the teeth and excrement of this life” (Williams, Howl, 7) as describing how Ginsberg lived with Carl Solomon through squalor and poverty. Williams’ doctor perspective has the ability to penetrate the ideal to show the horrid yet true realities of everyday. He shows that the Beat lifestyle was not a pretty one; yeah they had brief popularity which made being a Beat seductive and cool, but as the Beat Generation died out real Beats died out as well and became the old men with three legs in the evening. At that point I feel like the “Beats” were still around living the superficial Beat lifestyle (ie dressing in the style of the real Beats, trying to write like them, etc…) but not entirely realizing the impoverished side of the Beat generation. All three men speak of the same group of people who share the one same fate.
I look around me to discover the world as I have never seen it before. Beats beating bongos singing of a world in need of change with catnip hippies and banjo hobos with their long dread locks and longer faces staring up into the trees to see brothers and friends making a home that they will eventually and inevitably be evicted from.
People walking on the streets, me walking on their homes, screaming at the voices in their head telling them to leave them alone but they won’t leave them alone, the voices never do.
People sitting with cardboard signs of life decorated with black ink hoping we will recognize their life, their addiction, their death is worth more to us than the change in our collective pocket that we just got back from drug store down the street.
People talking to no one and everyone at the same time simply wishing for their voice to be heard and for someone to shut them up, because if someone told them to shut up then that person would be recognizing their existence. They talk to be heard, we talk so we cannot hear them.
People playing music to entertain the idea that if they are worth a damn we will give a damn or a dime, but we never give either. We would be happier if the strings and saxophones and songs and words would just fade into the distance along with the musician because then we could walk down the street and not have to feel guilty about ignoring its harmonic and plutonic existence.
People living on a hope and a dream, but hopes and dreams leave bellies empty and minds to wander to worlds where they do not exist. Would it be better to be in a world where I didn’t exist, they ask themselves, because at least at that place there is one less guilt for the world to have.
People dying ashamed and alone, even their soul wants nothing to do with their body. They look up at us passing by, begging for some help but too proud to say it because they know the world is too good for them and it is better to die with dignity then be rejected after asking for compassion.
People hoping for inevitable change that will never come. The world has forgotten them and left them behind, moving forward with the rest of humanity dragging its heals. Society clings on with teeth and claws watching those without the sharp instruments of success slide by and off the edge of the world.
The people fall and end up here, in the gutter of society which ready to be wash them away with the next street cleaner.
While all three of the groups described may have similarities, none are exactly the same group of people. Ginsberg refers to drug addicts, Ferlinghetti refers to the homeless, and Williams’ refers to poverty-stricken people.
Howl opens with Ginsberg describing intelligent people who ruined their life in one way or another. Whether it be drugs, madness, or poverty, something affected people that he knew and it “destroyed” them (9). The first few stanzas of Howl seem to only be referring to drug addicts because of the words Ginsberg uses: “hallucinating, an angry fix, and smoking” (9). “Angelheaded hipsters” may refer to a person who does PCP. The street name for PCP is angel dust and is usually smoked. It seems that these people Ginsberg discusses minds are filled with PCP and is why he says they are “angelheaded.” He writes that they are “burning for the ancient heavenly connection,” implying that they need to use the drug and want to hallucinate or go to a dreamlike state. Also, burning may cause the reader to think of a person smoking the drug.
Ferlinghetti is obviously referring to the homeless when he discusses “one with burlap feet” (73). The other lines in the poem describe people “sleeping huddled under cardboard” and “squatting in bushes” (73). Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti describe people who are struggling in life, but in different ways. Ginsberg’s group of people are struggling with an addiction while Ferlinghetti describes people struggling on the street.
William Carlos Williams is referring to the lower class when he discusses those “shared among the teeth and excrement of this life” (7). It seems that both Ginsberg and Carl Solomon struggled with poverty but were able to deal with it together. Like the people Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg describe, Williams is referring to people struggling financially. All three of these groups are dealing with different issues and can all relate through their life problems. They are all categorized as the lower class, but their problems differ.
I believe that these authors are referring to the same "genre" (if you will) of people. It goes without saying that their literary categorization of these individuals are quite similar and have existed consistently throughout all of time.
Each author is able to offer unique examinations of all those around them. It is the duty of authors to present commentary on society as they see it, as it is up to the read to interpret said commentary. Each author may approach this task differently, however it is clear that the subject matter is universally unaffected.
Though the language is noticeably different among the authors, whether they be angelic ("angel headed hipsters") or clad in burlap, the individual remains the same and unchanging through time.
Of course the social conditions greatly differ among each of these authors, however, as aforementioned, the subject does not change. As there will always be scholars, teachers, workers, etc. their will always be those who are not fortunate enough to maintain a livable income. These different authors merely examine the same subject but through different lenses as they pertain to the time and the situation in which they write.
Many times, walking through Santa Cruz, I have had the unique opportunity to overhear the diatribe of the locals (whether I chose to or not). In my mind I am often reminded of the language of these authors as I observe the homeless (for mere lack of better terminology) as they exist in the local spots. What leads me to my assumption that all the authors are speaking of the same subject is that each of their individual language is equally applicable as a description of these aforesaid locals
The description used by Ginsberg and Williams refers to the same type of person, while Ferlinghetti is referring to the same type of person from a different generation. As Williams Carlos Williams states in the introduction to Howl, Ginsberg was “much disturbed” by the men returning from the first world war, as they had seen horrors beyond the imagination of many (7). It is this type of person whom Ginsberg and Williams are referring to when they write about “angel headed hipsters”, although there is also a deeper meaning to this classification.
Williams continues the introduction by further explaining the severity to which post traumatic stress and other disorders affected the lives of men returning from war. In response to the common sentiment of ignoring such real life horrors, Williams states that poets overcome this emotion because they are able to “see with the eyes of angels” (8). It is with this affectivity of compassion that the gritty though sympathetic poetry of Ginsberg takes form, for his “angel headed hipsters” are more than just drug addicts and homeless people, they are men who have been through the hell of war, and now must face the hell of a postwar life which so many overlook.
Ferlinghetti’s reference to the “one with burlap feet” presents the image of a person who is farther away from the damaging days of warfare, as if this is the representation of what Ginsberg’s “angel headed hipsters” might become later in life. Ferlinghetti portrays men who are clearly homeless, while Ginsberg’s portrayal seems to focus more on the migratory patterns of men still trying to find their place in the world. Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg share commonalities in their topic choice, as the generational gap shows the progression from one stage of postwar life to the next more settled, and possibly final, stage.
What I Have Seen
For Allen Ginsberg
I have seen people dressed up in furry costumes, rolling dice, flopping cards, whose controllers never leave their hands, who spend their whole paychecks on gaming supplies, who only leave their keyboards to eat or sleep, who can’t see themselves as beautiful only their characters, who have lost their jobs, their apartments due to a life that exists only in cyberspace,who have whole relationships on Everquest and World of Warcraft.
I have seen people rot away from a disease they got because they felt they had to hide their love in alleyways and bathroom stalls, a disease whose name the president of my childhood refused to utter, a disease which congress voted against funding for a cure because of who had it, a disease for which while prevention is now taught in schools that teaching cannot target the greatest number of people who contract that disease because of their sexual orientation.
I have seen people who deny their love because of what other people might think, who hide in their closets, who lie straight to the face of the person they have feelings for because it’s easier than having to face the truth.
I have seen effeminate boys be called sissy and girly boy, girls who have been called dyke for holding hands in public, girls who shave their heads and kiss on the lips and don’t care what others think, boys who wear dresses and high heels and look better in them than I do.
I have seen people drop out of college with one or two classes to go, who work for minimum wage, who take your orders, who ring up retail purchases for the rich bitch on the hill, who tell you to have a nice day when what they really want say is fuck off.
I have seen girls who become mothers too young, who gave up their dreams, whose boyfriend kicked them out when he found out they were pregnant, who have gone back to school to make something of themselves and can barely make ends meet, who get kicked off welfare before they can finish their degree, who work long hours and still can’t give their kids cool clothes or toys, who do everything for a child who they barely get to see.
I have seen women who try to hide bruises, whose husbands and boyfriends and lovers have tempers, who say “but I love him”, who go back after he apologizes, who say “but he loves me”, who have forgotten what love is, who have lost their self confidence, who think they can change him, who think they deserve every insult and every slap, who spread their legs because if they let him have sex maybe he won’t hurt them, who tell themselves if only I was a better wife, a better girlfriend he wouldn’t hit me, who don’t leave because they have nowhere to go, who leave but go back because they’re afraid of being alone.
I have seen women who escape him but never escape the memories, who spend years running from relationships because they don’t know how to have healthy ones, who are afraid to love again, who have to learn how to trust again, who will always jump when someone touches them the wrong way or flinch at a raised hand, who remind themselves every day that it is better to be alone than to be with someone who makes you miserable.
I have seen children whose father crept into their beds, grow into adults who sleep around, adults who are afraid of their own sexuality, adults who call themselves victim and sometimes evolve into survivors, adults who can barely the whisper the word no but learn how to shout it, adults who never tell their story, who only tell their friends, who finally put it into words, who get up on stage and shout it to the world.
I have seen poets who refused to show their work to the world, who keep it hidden drawers or computer files, who capture beauty but are afraid it’s not beautiful enough for the world to see, who only whisper their poems in the dark, who received one criticism and decided their writing would never see the light of day again.
I have seen poets who are compelled to speak, those who stand on stage and spit what comes to mind, those who will read poems they don’t like just to get high scores at slams, those who don’t care what the audience thinks, those who tell their stories, those who tell others stories, who try to speak for others, who use microphones as therapy sessions.
I have seen idealists who go off to college convinced they can change the world, who become disillusioned, who search for answers in pill form, in smoke clouds, in the bottom of bottles, in trying on all sorts of lovers, who turn to the streets and change their name and go out searching for something, who sometimes come back years later and try to get their lives in order, who go back to school and graduate in their thirties.
I have seen people trapped by the limitations of their bodies and minds, who can’t walk, or can’t talk, who are stuck in chairs, who sit in dark rooms and stare at the tv all day, who have never seen a smile because their eyes don’t work right, who will never hear the sound of laughter because their world is soundless, who know truths we will never know because of an inability to communicate, who can’t open doors but dream in Technicolor, who are cast off by society with lables like handicapped, and developmentally disabled.
I have seen children who are brilliant but can’t read a word, who can tell you a story that would make your head spin but can’t write it down, who can’t tie their shoes but can explain the theory of relativity, who can’t catch a ball but can read at a college level, who can’t sit still for five minutes but can do calculus, who are written off by the schools because they just don’t learn the same way the other kids do, who fall through the cracks, or become seven year old drug addicts who pop Ritalin like it was candy.
I have seen people who never stop searching, who have tried every form of artistic expression from playing music, to painting, to singing karaoke, to writing, to staring at the world through a camera’s lens, who finally find the one for them and spend the rest of their lives trying to make it, only to be discovered once their graves have been dug.
The images of the “angel headed hipsters’, ‘one with burlap feet’, and he who ‘shared among the teeth and excrement of this life’ could possibly be related, but I doubt that Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, and William all meant the same people. It seems more likely like they were all commenting on a current trend going on at the time. The angel headed, and the burlap footed seems like a movement of some kind towards things less material. The idea of burlap feet struck me as something more natural, less materialized than shoes. The images of Angels and hipsters together are almost like an oxymoron. Angels are a much more genuine term than hipsters. Hipster makes me think of something synthetic, something made. Ginsberg putting these two images together really makes me think that a he was seeing what was going on at the time, and commented on the ‘hipsters’ growing within themselves. They may have been changing directions of thinking, or adapting a more ‘surreal’ existence. On the other hand, Ferlinghetti’s image of the one with burlap feet could be that he was seeing this shift of consciousness as merely a move toward the more material form of spirituality. While the angel headed hipsters are moving up, the burlap footed are just moving forward. For example, if one was to want to save the environment and go buy environmentally safe things, he is just moving forward, but if he wanted to save the environment and change his lifestyle for that purpose completely, he would be moving upward. When I think of Williams commentary, it makes me think that he is not so much as describing these people and what they are about, but he is commenting on the people who lived among the change.
In their respective pieces, I believe all three poets are discussing those left behind in society. However, I believe each poet refers to a different and specific set of people.
In the introduction to Howl, Williams writes that Carl Solomon and Ginsberg “shared among the teeth and excrement of this life something that cannot be described…It is a howl of defeat (7).” In this quote, Williams says that both Solomon and Ginsberg have been through a lot of unpleasantness in their lives and he says he is surprised that Ginsberg has come out alive and has been able to produce a book of poetry. In this quote, William refers specifically to Ginsberg and Solomon.
Ginsberg is less so referring to the homeless than he is all the outcasts of his generation in general. Ginsberg sees left behind as the "best minds of his generation". Not just the homeless but all those who are lost in the abyss of corruption and corporations. He refers to those who are intelligent and creative but not upfront in society. This is right in line with how the beats lived their lives.
In contrast (but not completely), in I saw one of them, Ferlinghetti is talking about the homeless and the destitute: "I saw one of them sleeping/ huddled under cardboard" and "I saw another putting a rope/ through the loops of his pants (73)." It is quite clear that unlike Ginsberg and Williams, Ferlinghetti is specifically referencing the homeless on the streets of San Francisco.
They are the transient souls that wander among us carrying the weight of the world on their threadbare shoulders.
They are the resisters the dissidents the fighters the lovers the jarring offbeat poets actors artists street musicians stroking bruised guitars and bleeding hearts like veteran amputees stroking phantom femurs.
They are the flea marketeers the college students drinking beers laughing running naked in the rain making art making love making hope making lives.
They are the ones voting for change and looking for potential in everything originality and beauty and sparks to ignite the flame.
They carry hope in their souls like a seed waiting to be planted.
They crave knowledge and freedom they live amongst the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor they volunteer travel go to places like Tanzania Ghana Argentina.
They get bored so they turn the world on its head to look at it from a different angle.
They are optimistic when things fall apart apocalypse coming economy crumbling but still hope in their eyes and lights on in their attics.
They live with the wind on their lips and the mountains in their eyes always climbing to the top always hoping always reaching always discovering changing believing making always loving.
They are the earthly stars that glow bright when it is dark they are angels amongst atheists.
They are everywhere everything everyone.
They are you and me and them and us.
I have seen the best minds of my generation
Wallow in the filth of deception; starve their souls of the nectar of reality.
Men and Women finding truth between tokes in forts made of twigs.
Whose minds wander in class while Professors relish in Nostalgia
About free love and poetic liberation.
Who are being crushed by student debt,
credit card debt, state debt
national debt
global warming
water shortage
coke or pepsi
cock or pussy
Who scream at their I phones for a real solution to the energy crisis.
Who jerk off a thousand times a second to an information overload
Who want to know if the “axe affect” will give them an STD
There are distinct similarities that link each character, typically through class and social conditions. All appear to linger on the outside of society looking in: the hollow-eyed poor seeking sustenance, the addicts scrounging dirty streets for a score, “angel-headed hipsters” yearning for some higher form of spiritual enlightenment, who wander into the night wondering where to go and how to get there. This image is first conjured by the words of William Carlos Williams: “On the way [Allen Ginsberg] met a man named Carl Solomon with whom he shared among the teeth and excrement of this life something that cannot be described but in the words he has used to describe it” (Ginsberg, 7). Carl Solomon represents a specific category of people who have somehow become unraveled from the very fabric of society. He remains on the lower end of the social spectrum as a man devoid of privilege (in the sense of financial wealth and mental stability) – a man that must fight through the bitter “teeth and excrement” of life with great struggle.
Despite generational gaps that distinguish Howl from San Francisco Poems, the social environments that shape each individual share some interesting commonalities. For instance, Ferlinghetti’s “one with burlap feet” refers to an idealized view of the homeless as caught within the raw surroundings of a class-divided city, burdened yet liberated by their clashes with an industrialized nation. In this sense, time plays a minor role: poverty is a cancer that proliferates through each generation – both Ginsberg’s and Ferlinghetti’s. But there is another side to this view as well. Both authors also seem to be highlighting a trend towards a more simplistic manner of living within this industrial epidemic. Ferlinghetti's poem, in particular, elevates the status of those with few possessions, observing one standing by the Golden Gate, taking the time to absorb the beatific view (as opposed to sitting in an office cubicle perpetuating the western "machine," as Ginsberg describes).
Perhaps Ginsberg, Williams Carlos Williams, and Ferlinghetti are describing similar individuals but the authors relationship and perspective on this class of person is quite varied. The men's personal relationship to San Francisco and the underclass of individual shape their understanding and relationship to such people and the perspectives offered here describe individuals in varying stages of development.
Ginsberg and Carl Solomon whom William Carlos Williams describes were part of the “beat” generation, a culture of dissent, tolerance of eccentricity, and revolution. Writers and artists during this period were experimenting with an altered, uncensored sense of self using the “style and language of addicts, con men, carnies, hustlers, and small timers.” (Peters, 205) Ginsberg and Carl Solomon associated themselves with the disenfranchised, abusing drugs and experimenting with forms of expression. In “Howl” Ginsberg is both expressing and reflecting on those “angle headed hipsters” as well as his own participation in such a world. Perhaps his own experiences through mind alteration and a reassessment and deconstruction of academic poetry lead him to conceive “Howl.” At the same time “Howl” encourages and fuels the continuation of progression and the need for uncensored writing as documented in the attempt and failure to ban the publication of the poem. Ginsberg participates in the culture he is describing in his writing both critiquing and justifying his participation through his writing.
In contrast Ferlinghetti never considered himself part of the "beat" movement but instead associated himself with an older generation of bohemians. Ferlinghetti takes a deromanticized look at characters described by and associated with Ginsberg and Solomon. His description in “I Saw One of Them” observes the cultural fall out of the “beat” generation. He observes a “community self-destructed under the weight of Dionysian excess, political naïveté, and the impossibility of creating a utopia that would serve macro-cosmic needs.” (Peters, 213) Ferlinghetti examines the culture of excess from the perspective of over-use, abuse, and personal destruction which is product of the “beat” generation.
Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams, and Ferlinghetti are describing individuals associated with their generation but are addressing perceptions at varying stages of participation and observation. What are the results of drug use and a rejection of standard civilization, does it provide new ideas and free development? And what of the eventual costs of abuse and self-destruction?
“In spite of the most debasing experiences that life can offer a man, the spirit of love survives to ennoble our lives if we have the wit and courage and the faith—and the art! to persist” (Howl 8).
In the introduction to Howl, Williams reminds the reader that in spite of Ginsberg’s hardships and sufferings, his love for the people in his life gave him the perseverance to continue. While working at the St. Francis soup kitchen for a quarter last year, I got to know some of the Santa Cruz homeless a little better. I spent the majority of my morning cooking soup and chopping vegetables, but at noon, I carried my trays out and passed out the deserts to the hundred or so hungry consumers. They filed in one by one at noon, lining up, smiling, praying, and thanking us all. They talked amongst each other, sitting down at tables with trays full of food and meeting someone new. Of course, there were the few who kept to themselves, refusing to make eye contact, but still muttering a soft “thank you” before leaving the line, and the kids who looked too young to even be out of high school, keeping their headphones in and their eyes on the floor. But for one hour Monday-Friday, everyone forgot their troubles and relaxed. I had war veterans slink up to me and sweet talk me for a second desert, and an old man make me a pink origami flower, which I still have a year later. Providing all these men, women, and children with hot, home cooked meals was one of the most gratifying experiences I have ever had in my short twenty years of life.
Despite the last three lines of Ferlinghetti’s “I Saw One of Them” and most of Ginsberg’s “Howl,” there is a reason not every homeless person jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge or ends their life with a needle in an alleyway. Yes, the homeless have been neglected and ignored, passed over by guilty pedestrians refusing to give a dollar or five seconds of their time, and screwed by the government after war while suffering from PTSD. But the little moments of peace where one can forget their problems and their social position are the moments that everyone lives for. Ginsberg found this hope and tranquility within a lover and friends, as do the Santa Cruz locals, in a soup kitchen and on the streets with a hand drum or guitar, belting out their emotions for a little money and some human connection.
It appears as if there is a bit of a divide between Ferlinghetti's subject and Ginsberg's subject, as Ginsberg is discussing "angelheaded hipsters" not "one of them" as Ginsberg describes his subject. Ginsberg's term "angelheaded hipsters" contains a very pure yet also innocent vision of those who have been harmed by societal norms and institutions that he feels are "destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked" that is an inevitable result of such institutions. Ginsberg depicts these individuals as if they once had a chance to be great, or to grow from something pure and innocent into an active member of society who works to promote this purity amidst a world of conformity in man-made social norms that restrict people from living free and rewarding lives. Both Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg are speaking of people who are overlooked and treated as something less than human as a result by those who assimilate and blindly follow social rules and norms. Ginsberg writes that he "saw the best minds of my generation destroyed" and Ferlinghetti continuously repeats the words "I saw one" of the people ravaged by society in similar ways to stress that they actually notice these people, thus highlighting how overlooked and pushed out of the public eye and public concern.
However, Ferlinghetti presents a harsher view of these people that shows the poor way of live these people endure, while Ginsberg discusses the societal factors that have pushed and excluded them to the reality that Ferlinghetti describes. For Ginsberg specifically addresses the "angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night" which is such a packed statement that is not easy to overlook his cynicism for some idealized "hope and greatness of the future" in a society that is consumed in materialism, consumerism, and conformity half aligned with the idea of "heaven" and peace, as well as corporate America instituting "machinery" into what is natural, "night." Now these individuals in Ginsberg's poem who "passed through universities with radiant cool eyes" and who later "were expelled from the academies for crazy" are as Ferlinghetti shows are "huddled under cardboard... roused by the priest... squatting in bushes... staggering against the plate glass window of a first-class restaurant." I do not think that this was an intentional before and after picture of these individuals, but it makes sense that seeing things from a later perspective Ferlinghetti would see a bleaker future for them than Ginsberg who wrote Howl before the Summer of Love. From this last image it is clear that these individuals have been literally blocked off from the "first-class;" though they can see them through the glass, there is a disconnect between them because they are restricted by a conformist and consumerist society. In other words, what society does to "the best minds of my generation" is to reduce them to a state of poverty and make them appear as if they are unintelligent and worth nothing.
I feel that William Carlos Williams is referring to Carl Solomon with Ginsberg through the words "shared among the teeth and excrement of this life" in order to place them in this same category as either "an angelheaded hipster" or "one of them" in order to show that they are successful even in this decrepit state. However, I agree very much with Pablo in his discussion that "it would be hard to deign the difference between a haggard poet and a simple stereotype of a homeless person." By relating themselves and their audiences to the homeless, who are overlooked, they ignite a feeling of superiority of these individuals who may or may not be homeless to promote their way of life and thought amidst the way of life of those who conform to rigid societal norms. It gives me a feeling of a vision of the poor and overlooked minority rising up to defeat the conformist and consumerist majority. Here is the lower class, identified with the homeless mostly as a more powerful and moving dramatic device.
These three people all allude to a downtrodden, defeated person. However, Ginsberg's and William's people are more similar and connected than Ferlinghetti's people.
Ginsberg aligns himself with beat poetry and the social group surrounding it. He alludes to Kerouac in "Sunflower Sutra" and Solomon in "Howl" thus acknowledging his place among them. His place among the beat poets, while being one of seeming poverty and despair, fuels his art in a way that luxury and riches could not. The strophes following Ginsberg's description of "angel headed hipsters" all seem like plausible adventures Ginsberg went on with his friends. He seems to simply be describing what goes on in his life while proclaiming that even as vile as some of it seems, it is more noble than certain immoral ways of life based around attainment of wealth.
William Carlos Williams, in his introduction, aligns Ginsberg to the society of beat poets by pointing out that Ginsberg met Carl Solomon and "shared among the teeth and excrement of this life." Again, Ginsberg is one with the people and lifestyle that created beat poety. Ginsberg is one with the group. He shares these experiences with them.
On the other hand, Ferlinghetti makes the important distinction of him versus "them." His depiction of "[ones] with burlap feet" and so on serve to distance himself from the other. He does not feel himself to be a part of beat poety, but a sort of pre-beat. However, his descriptions of them do not seem to correlate with beat poets either. They are not "angel headed hipsters" with some sort of agenda to live a life of beatitude. They are only people without homes, without hope of something better. He does not describe them as writing poetry or hanging out together experimenting with drugs or what not. Ferlinghetti depicts these homeless people as alone and without hope. It is always "one" of them, not a group of them. They do not have a group to associate themselves with; they are not part of a movement. They have no vision of somehow overcoming society's vices by living an alternative life; they just don't have any other options. Also, Ferlinghetti says he saw one of them "by the Brooklyn Bridge" indicating a geographical distance from the beat poets of San Francisco.
Ferlinghetti's homeless people seem to be victims of circumstance, not active participants in their lifestyle choices like beat poets were. In my opinion, the beat poets had a sort of high and mighty view of themselves, looking down upon the majority of people living in the consumer society of America.
Ginsberg, Williams, and Ferlinghetti are essential describing the same homeless figures, but differentiate in the path in which people get to there.How does one get to the point of no return? They each describe a person that is worn-down and tattered.
Ginsberg associates himself with a certain social group that is reminiscent of Ferlighetti’s beat poem called The Artist. Even though he was at the point where many considered him synonymously with beat poetry, he wanted to achieve the social stature of some of the other beatniks, while in reality he hates the idea of being labeled and categorized with a group of the rich and the extremely luxurious. The “angel headed hipsters” represented all of his friends that were a part of the beat community. He described his friends in such a manner because even they were considered brilliant minds that could do no wrong on the surface, but underneath the surface they were all fake. He would rather be considered as a genius at what he does and let speculation happen rather than to be considered nothing at all.
Ferlinghetti, on the other hand, uses his sense of otherness to convey the people in the poems. He establishes binary oppositions between us and them when describing homeless people. By doing so he shows that the people with “burlap feet” may be different than those that have clean feet, but essentially, they are still people. In this sense, he sees himself as a writer, but he doesn’t necessarily associate himself the beatniks, even though he is typically labeled, or mentioned with them. He doesn’t paint the homeless people in a positive light, but he doesn’t paint them in a negative light either. He merely is showing that these people, are still people, but they happen t lack a form of shelter. When he alludes to the Brooklyn Bridge, he s alluding to the fact that his poetry and the poetry of San Francisco at the time is miles apart.
William Carlos Williams was similar to Ginsburg and not as much to Ferlinghetti because Williams too associates himself with the beats. He shows that Ginsberg met Carl Solomon and “shared among the teeth and excrement in this life.”
It would seem at first that the poets are not describing the same people. Ginsberg rants excitedly and anxiously about “angelheaded hipsters” who “contemplate jazz” and “seek visionary Indian angels who were Indian angels”. With Ginsberg, one feels more compelled into an illuminating vignette of drug induced love, and hate and passion; something which is just not felt when reading Ferlenghetti’s poem. Ferlinghetti seems at first glance to be describing much more the mundane life of the homeless; with the bright and mysterious symbols like the “hydrogen jukebox” being bypassed for the “bird on his shoulder” and the “burlap feet”. However, at this point, it becomes important to consider the dates of these poems and the way in which the time each was wrote introduces the possibility that in fact, these poets are indeed writing about the same people.
With Ferlinghetti’s “I saw one of them” being published first in 1997, one can take it not as describing a totally different set of people to that of Ginsberg and Williams, but as describing the same people, just from a new perspective. Whilst Ginsberg writes almost autobiographically, documenting his time on the “inside” of this beatitude and drug filled street life; Ferlinghetti’s poem becomes a description almost half a century on of where these people ended up. The descriptions of the people from each of the poets becomes almost a timeline of beatitude and street life and where for many not as fortunate as Ginsberg and Williams, where it ended up.
With this point in mind, I find particular discomfort in considering the last line of “I saw one of them”.
“I saw another standing by the Golden Gate,
The view from there was great”.
In this line Ferlinghetti could be consolidating what he has already suggested: that the view from the outside, having escaped from the street, is something beautiful; like the San Franciscan skyline. However, after considering this poem as a whole, one cannot help but sense that in here Ferlinghetti is referring to the view from the eyes of “one of them”. In this poem, Ferlinghetti reveals a deep seated need to relive the street, beat days in the “so cool city”.
The street is cracked and poorly paved and littered with trash, rotten and un-swept. The trash sometimes wears matching coats and ties, spit-and-polish loafers, lint-free socks. The trash sometimes wears a sweater, a crisp collar folded neatly over the neck, the cuffs bleeding out through the sleeves. The trash sometimes wears a plastic poncho, stained and gritty, covered in different pieces of yesterday, curled up in a ball somewhere out of the wind. The trash sometimes looks toothless, grizzled and unwashed, silently muttering doomed without dreams. The trash sometimes sounds loud and pretentious, young and almost educated, ready to do nothing with the rest of their lives. The trash sometimes feels trapped, boxed in, labeled, dismissed. The trash sometimes is our bright future, aimless and wandering, standing hopeless in front of a crumbling global altar, abused and ignored in the great Theater of Dreams. The trash sometimes looks like you, eyes shut and staring, burning with insignificant unused passion, a tired smile frowning out of the shadow of disillusionment. The trash sometimes looks like us, young and disparate, motley and cynical, raging and shackled. The trash sometimes gets thrown away, crumpled up and destroyed, crushed and broken, failed and forgotten. The trash sometimes…is trash.
Truly, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti and Williams are referring to the same group of people. While the specifics of their descriptions are up for debate, what they are all three aiming at is the power and potential unrecognized or silenced by social strains. Regardless of whether Williams is talking about a drug addict on the corner or if Ginsberg is alluding to someone laying on a thin scrap of cardboard they are talking about the same themes and ideas.
In a world that shelters competition and rewards aggressiveness, not everyone is welcome or guided into the arenas of acceptance. The most brilliant people, regardless of potential or passion are left to be walked over and ignored because of an unjust and unforgiving social reality. Though many downtrodden may not recognize themselves as “angel headed hipsters” as Ginsberg does, they still fit the mold of those who have been forgotten by the system.
There is a strong misconception about the meaning and accessibility of the American dream. Horatio Alger has led people to wrongly believe that choice, privilege and wealth are at the feet of anyone willing to work hard enough for it. The truth is that the most brilliant minds, as Ginsberg has shown us, are sometimes unable to achieve the goals so falsely promised in our American fables. While the beats weren't the first to point out this discrepancy between fairy tales and reality, Ferlinghetti, Williams and Ginsberg did it uniquely, with language that shook the average person out of a comforting fictional world and introduced the question of equity and equality into their consciousness.
It seems as though Ginsberg, Williams, and Ferlinghetti are referencing the same types of people in their poetry, but from an entirely different perspective. Ginsberg from the view of someone living and breathing the experiences of the “angel-headed hipsters”; in the middle of filth and hopelessness. Williams appears to be able to appreciate the sentiment of the lines, but from a reasonably safe distance of course. Ferlinghetti on the other hand seems to come from a place wholly removed from the personal and emotional lyricism that Ginsberg displays. “I Saw One of Them” seems to treat the homeless and destitute as something less than human, from an observational and impersonal kind of view.
In the introduction to “Howl” Williams acknowledges that Ginsberg, “who has gone, in his own body, through the horrifying experiences” he himself describes, is able to relate them in a manner that is more specific in personal. This is evident in the haggard and frantic imagery throughout Ginsberg’s poem. The stanzas in “Howl” are filled with specific images of the vagrant and often psychologically disturbed individuals, stemming from Ginsberg’s own relationships and experiences, including those he shared with Carl Solomon. Williams, introduces the poem but his tone carries the shock and awe of a circus ringleader or a sensationalist orator. His diction in lines such as “a man, if he be a man, is not defeated” (Williams 7) or “Hold back the edges of your gowns, Ladies, we are going through hell” (Williams 8) give his introduction a sense of entertainment value that place him within the chaotic lifestyle Ginsberg describes but separate from the experience of it all. Williams knows of the kinds of “debasing experiences” that Ginsberg describes but more as a person looking from the outside in than anything else.
Ferlinghetti on the other hand seems to come from an entirely disparate place. Even the title of the poem “I Saw One of Them” sounds more like the title of a post apocalyptic survival horror movie than anything resembling social commentary on the state of the homeless and the downtrodden and their place in society. The monotony of the poem and the repetition give the words an almost analytical feeling to them. I imagine a nature documentary and a man with a clipboard taking down notes as he observes the homeless man in his native habitat. One could argue the parallels to Saint Francis serve to deify the subjects of the poem, but even that kind of metaphor dehumanizes them. Ferlinghetti may be referring to the same people that Williams and Ginsberg discuss in “Howl” and its introduction but his poem does not give readers the sense that he has lived as one of them.
I believe that the references made by Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, and William Carlos Williams is indeed same group of people. But, as social conditions change with time, however, the exact people which the ‘group’ references may change. It also can be argued that each of these three authors saw a different side of the same group, perhaps just simply seeing what they wanted to see or what they thought would be the most relevant aspect to write about.
All three groups of people are described in the writings as a wayward bunch, soldiering through life by the skin of their teeth and (perhaps intentionally?) casting off the comforts of life in order to function for some higher purpose – perhaps to live a life dedicated to ignoring entrapments of a capitalist society as was the manifesto for most of the beats: ‘who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets’ (Ginsberg 10). These are the types of people that the three authors are referring to. If one were to call this group ‘hipsters’ – as Ginsberg does in Howl - in 1956, they would be referring to a group of people whom, at that time, were engaged in non-mainstream activities. Whether or not it was the Beats themselves that the poets were trying to describe does not appear immediately obvious to me as it is difficult to make such a claim without having been there to experience.
However, I feel it is safe to conclude that while the three authors were referring to the same group of people in their generation, their descriptions applied to contemporary society would be obsolete.
I have seen the best minds of our blank generation squashed in institution,
the lost lambs are in—
peeling the skin off their hands and feet, hoping hoping hoping for a sensory opening,
in jail, rent-free and stopped against concrete walls and ceilings, cooking for work and a free chance to make anything,
in grocery store women’s restrooms guzzling Tecate from tall cans,
in the tropics—paradise! desperately searching for somewhere new for the sunburned hand of man to penetrate,
in an armchair on the lawn, smelling eucalyptus oil wondering if the stench is rotting trees or rotting feet,
fighting the urge to fix up every time a head cold comes on,
in school, flopping through internet pages and laughing somewhere between eel porn and booking a flight,
in between three women who are twisting to terrible 1990s English girl-pop, smiling with eyes closed over tearful regrets of a lack of substance,
in a kitchen in a tourist town pulling buns from an oven ten, twenty, thirty times a day—each time reviving the forearm blisters from yesterday’s shift,
in the car spewing guts up Highway 1 at seventy miles per hour,
working for Ford five days straight, band practice on Wednesday, playing an LA show this Saturday for free cocktails,
in pajamas all Sunday, stuffed-up and hung-over and fed-up with drinking but happy because last night’s lay was fantastic,
in a Greyhound bus scared to leave Colorado rehab; life and legacy waiting back home,
scared to leave the comfort of university learning for the choke bitter clamps of capital gain,
buying unflavored toothpaste and listening to records goobered in bubble gum,
running naked dangle sliding on the raindrop-slick hoods of cop cars,
in the last neighborhood dirt pile, surrounded by paper cup construction trash and yellow Caterpillars left from workers fixing up the land into something more civilized, something more like the place next door.
Nick Furnal/Differing social conditions, same people
Nick, I strongly agree with the point you made concerning altered social conditions as having little effect on the subjects of these pieces. Throughout time, there have always been the slovenly in contrast with the elite. These binaries have filled our civilization for centuries, thus the only difference between, say, the “angel-headed hipster” and one with burlap feet lies in language usage. Though the poetic styles of Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg are both stark, they each offer their own unique insight into the lives of their subjects – subjects who are inherently the same breed of man: poor, destitute, hysterical, raving, searching for any wisdom the universe can dispense. Granted, each author is influenced by the time in which they composed the poems in question. But within the vast expanse of time, Nick is also correct that the downtrodden have basically remained constant, unchanging entities in society.
Pablo – Comment on the Categorization of Homeless
Pablo I agree with your notion of the difficulty in distinguishing the various types of homeless. I think this is the key issue in comparing the three descriptions by Ferlinghetti, Williams, and Ginsberg. I believe that Ginsberg and Solomon because of their involvement in the beat generation had a somewhat romantic notion of this counter-culture. The beats are described as a group of cultural dissent that spoke and participated in the language of experimental drugs and revolution. As some of our other classmates pointed out, the “angle-headed hipsters” seem to refer to individuals under the influence of PCP. Ginsberg and Solomon associated themselves with the disenfranchised, eccentric, and experimental. On the contrary, Ferlinghetti paints a more realistic picture of the homeless in San Francisco. He addresses the romanticizing of the homeless and real life situations of the disavowed. He describes individuals shoed away from establishments made for supporting the homeless and the contemplation of suicide. These are individuals who have no notion of a counter-culture or the fight against standard academic teachings. Instead, these are individuals who have no food or homes and lack the support system of people like Ginsberg.
Rosa
Sam Evans/the end of "one of them"
So, Sam, at the end of your response, you said that your reading of the poem's last lines is discomforting--why? The thought of Ferlinghetti wanting to relive his street days? I'm left wanting more. I agree with your analysis on the differences between Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti's descriptions for the most part, but I don't think I get why you're so discomforted. If Ferlinghetti's "outside" perspective is being tarnished in that last line--in his wanting to be back "inside," as it were--does that trash the validity of the entire poem? I think, if anything, it gives it some life, some human perspective on it. I didn't really respond that viscerally to any of his poems, but I like that the ending there might show some sort of sign of emotional ambiguity.
The angel haired hipsters are to me reminiscent of the way Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti speak about youth, "The best minds of a generation" are full of innocence/youth. A theme within most of this beat poetry is the end of the beat. There is a undertone of corruption, police and social responsibility. After years of war and social consciousness the beat gave birth to angel haired hipsters- unique to a generation. Drugs could also be added into the interpretation of "best minds of a generation". I feel that in the cultural context of the poem the poets are like walking bards, philosophers and men of nature. I don't see the tone of "burlap feet" being a overtly negative one. All it means is that they are well traveled. At first these hipsters, like all people, are in starry eyed awe but quickly succumb to the world. The end of youth also symbolizes the end of the beat within a lot of these poems. The social status is changing yes, but the nature of these hipsters are changing also. A cultural understanding of who these hipsters are and how they got to where they are is a differing perspective in each poem. These greatest minds are sometimes ruined or enhanced by the drugs of the beat and the beat itself. I feel that the authors are referring to the changing generation of children that were born in a upright culture.
Post a Comment